Hicks loves competing for every point. She loves practicing with her brother, Tyler, 16, at the Port Jervis High tennis courts. And, Hicks just can't resist when her 6-year-old brother, Corbin, grabs a racket and wants to hit tennis balls on their road in Cuddebackville.

The one part of tennis that Hicks doesn't like is when she misses the ball in her matches at first singles for Port Jervis.

"There was a shot that dropped right next to me," Hicks recalled after her match against John S. Burke Catholic on Monday. "It's just a guessing game. You swing and hope you hit it. I tried and I missed it. It gets aggravating."

Sometimes, Hicks comes off the court upset about missing a ball and Robert Hicks reminds his daughter, "Remember you are doing with one eye what everyone else needs two eyes to do."

Daisay Hicks was born without vision in her left eye.

"I'm completely blind," said Hicks, a senior. "If you were to close one eye, that's basically how I see."

One day when she was in kindergarten, Hicks was sitting in front of a television. She played along with a cartoon covering her left eye and then her right. After a few minutes, Hicks told her father that she didn't have sight in her left eye. He was in disbelief. He held up his fingers and asked Daisay to count them, but she couldn't see them.

Doctors had Hicks wear a patch on her right eye with the hopes of strengthening her left eye, but the patch actually hurt the vision in her good eye. Exploratory surgery was suggested in an attempt to correct Hicks' vision, but the family didn't want to put her through the pain of surgery. She was functioning well with one eye.

"I can walk," Hicks said. "I can do everything. I live with it. It's no different to me. If I had two eyes, I would probably have to learn how to do everything all over again."

Hicks, who played Pop Warner football as a lineman when she was 10 and 11, wanted a sport to call her own in high school. She decided to try tennis in the seventh grade. Her older sister, Brittany, had left tennis after a year. Daisay picked up Brittany's racket and hasn't put one down since.

"I can play it," said Hicks, who is a pro marksmen with a 22-gauge shotgun. "It's my sport. People can take the sport for granted. They play because they are really good at it. I do it because I love to do it. I just love to be able to come out and hit some balls."

Hicks has had to overcome some hurdles. Her depth perception is tested every time she takes the court. Hicks recalls one practice when a ball, shot out from a machine, hit her in the throat.

"I could see it coming, but I couldn't move fast enough," Hicks said. "I was like, 'Now, I know to back up and be more aware.' If I'm close then I can't see the whole thing. If I back up, then I can see more."

This season, Hicks, a doubles player for her first two varsity seasons, earned Port Jervis' top singles spot by defeating three girls in preseason challenges. Singles has made Hicks a stronger player because she no longer has a partner to hit back a shot she misses.

Hicks has won once in her first 11 matches, but she doesn't use her left-eye blindness as an excuse.

Most of her teammates don't even know about it.

"Sometimes you forget about it," said Port Jervis coach Luann McCarthy. "She doesn't talk about it. The kids on the team are going to find out by reading this story."

Hicks' story will continue into the postseason. By playing first singles, Hicks automatically qualified for the Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament in two weeks.

Robert Hicks said his daughter, "inspires him with every match."

"She won't let anything hold her down," Robert Hicks said. "You see what she has accomplished and maybe it helps one child to play tennis or try something else that they think they can't do. She's showed with heart and desire you can do anything."

Hicks promises one thing to the rest of her opponents this season.

"I'm not going to back down," she said.

Hicks doesn't want her competitive career to end in high school.

"I know playing in college wouldn't be easy," said Hicks, who wants to study occupational therapy. "But life is not easy."